The workshop will highlight the necessity to make the Internet accessible to
all, regardless of individual capabilities of different users. This impacts
not only the need to eliminate information deprivation but also to eliminate
social economic discrimination. Access to the Internet is important for all
people of all nations so that they can benefit from e-commerce, e-health,
e-education and in general e-communications. Including the needs of persons
with disabilities in the planning of the Universalization of the Internet
will facilitate reaching the next billion and will increase the
participation in the Global Internet Society.

Background

The ITU is one of the founder Members of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on
Accessibility and Disability (DCAD). The aim of the DCAD is to facilitate
interaction between relevant bodies, and ensure that ICT accessibility is
included in the key debates around Internet Governance in order to build a
future where all sectors of the global community have equal access to the
Information Society. We are convinced that the entire community can benefit
from an “accessible ICT world”, as people can be permanently or temporarily
disabled due to personal, environmental (e.g. a phone call in a noisy
environment) or cultural (e.g. spoken language diversity) conditions.
Moreover, we will all grow old and lose abilities that we take for granted
now, thus enlarging the part of the population that would benefit from
accessible communication. We cannot allow isolation of a part of the
population due to lack of appropriate functionality that prevents the use of
ICT resources by everybody to the fullest possible degree. The ITU, in
collaboration with a Steering Committee formed by various stakeholders that
are also partners of the DCAD, has organized this workshop.